Best Business Expert

I don’t know a single business that doesn’t want more customers. Sure, there might be brief seasons in your business when you think "I just can’t handle any more customers right now" but those seasons pass and, overall, the need for customers continues.

This need for customers can come from the same set of customers (in other words, get your current customers to buy more from you) or from new customers. Earlier this week, we talked about Ram Charan’s book "Profitable Growth Is Everyone’s Business: 10 Tools You Can Use Monday Morning" and I summarized four ways to innovate to find new customers.

In this article, I’d like to continue the theme of getting new customers by referencing an excellent article I read recently. The article is in SmallBiz and is called "Diversify or Die". That’s a little alarming but it could happen: Your business could fade if you’re not actively pursuing new opportunities.

The article outlines a small handful of companies and what they are doing to generate more business. A tool company is looking into advanced energy and medical technology, an antiques gallery has opened a neighboring jewelry store.

Diversification of products or services sounds like a great idea and you can read the brief article here. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as simply deciding "I’m going to diversify my offering today." Diversification of products and services needs to take a few things into consideration:

•    Take a small step and try to offer your current products to a new customer base. That way, you don’t have to invest in a lot of new merchandise or systems to begin with. Instead, you just need to find new ways to market your existing inventory.

•    Consider redefining what your product or service does. If you can retool your product for another market, you can open up vast diversification without a lot of effort.

•    If you’re going to offer something entirely new, look very carefully to ensure that you are familiar with it in some way. You don’t have to offer products that are exactly the same. In fact, you can offer products that are substantially different, as long as you’re good and branding and you’re familiar with the distribution system. The example mentioned above of the gallery opening a neighboring store under a different name to sell jewelry is a good example: A new brand and a new product but a similar distribution.

•    Seek the advice and feedback of your customers before making too many changes. Your current customer base might have some good ideas of products or services they wish you offered and they might also provide value feedback about what they don’t want you to do.

Diversify or die? Sounds harsh but it could happen. Instead, create new opportunities from new products or markets.

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